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Media reports say BT to slash 10,000 jobs

British media reported on Sunday that British Telecom will cut another 10,000 jobs in coming months to reduce costs. BT calls the number "speculative". Preliminary results out next month are likely to be among BT's worst since its 1984 privatisation.

AFP - British telecoms operator BT will cut 10,000 jobs when it reveals its preliminary results next month, reports said Sunday.

BT will also make a 1.5 billion pound (2.2 billion dollar) writedown in its under-fire Global Services division and slash its dividend by about 60 percent, according to the Daily Telegraph's website.

The job losses, which the report said will be in addition to the 10,000 job cuts BT made last year, are expected to be spread across the company's 160,000-strong global workforce.

BT's share price has plunged from 235 pence to 81 pence in just over a year, following a series of bad financial results.

The company warned in October that the previous management of Global Services, which supplies telecoms and IT services to multinational companies and government bodies, had overestimated the profitability of some of its biggest contracts.

BT's results are likely to be among the worst since it was privatised in 1984, the Telegraph and the Sunday Times reported.

Its poor financial performance in the face of the global economic slowdown is compounded by the cost of trying to plug its huge pension deficit.

A BT spokesman said the reports of an additional 10,000 job cuts were "speculative numbers."